


Don't Hate the Player Hate the Pantheon

by Like_a_Hurricane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate History, Aurochs, Bruce Banner as Lenus, Carol Danvers as Andraste, Clint Barton as Robin Goodfellow, Emma Frost as Nematona, Featuring, Howard Stark as Ogmios, James Rhodes as Nodens, M/M, Natasha Romanoff as Morrigan, Pepper Potts as Brigid, Tony Stark as the Celtic god Cernunnos, and prehistoric megafauna, because he is a science nerd of course if he were a celtic god his nickname would be CERN, plot-related tongue piercing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-12 16:47:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9081091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: Loki is in the depths of bitterness after two failed relationships and a few family secrets weighing heavy on his mind, but at least he was right about how Alfheim was a powder-keg ready to go off in the Roman Empire's face. He could've warned his family, but didn't, about a number of things. This catches the attention of the charismatic rebel leader who kicked Rome in the teeth, and makes him rather curious what else Asgard's younger prince hasn't been telling people about, but being stark-raving obvious about his interest isn't safe, ever since Loki helped him free of his father's last fetters of control over him.And what happens when Rome stops being a problem for the mortals Cern has educated and protected, and raiders who wear images of Thor's hammer and make great sacrifices to Odin start to show up in their yards instead?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seizure7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seizure7/gifts).



> Based on a prompt from Seizure7 on Tumblr: "SINCE IT'S QUIET THIS EVENING: FROSTIRON! IF GOD/MORTAL WASN'T ENOUGH OF A DIFFERENCE, WOOING ANOTHER GOD FROM A RIVAL PARTHENON IS EVEN TOUGHER. ASGARD'S ATTENTION WANES FOR A BRIEF DECADE & THOSE FICKLE MIDGARDIANS ARE PRAYING TO ANOTHER HOST OF PAGAN GODS HAILING FROM A REALM NOT CONNECTED TO YGGDRASIL. THOR IS SENT TO WIN BACK VIKING HEARTS & LOKI IS SECRETLY SENT TO SPY ON (*COUGH* SABOTAGE) THE COMPETITION'S MOST POPULAR DEITY BUT OH NO HE'S HOT (AND PERCEPTIVE AND... FLIRTY?!?)"
> 
> Useful terminology:
> 
>  _Tír na nÓg_ \- the otherworld in Irish mythology  
>  _Tuath Dé Danann_ \- most figures in Irish Legend who are otherworldly in nature, if they are wearing the white hats, are probably the either one of the Tuath Dé Danann (kindred of the goddess Danu) or allied with them  
>  _Aos Sí_ \- another name for the white-hats amongst the supernatural in Irish myth  
>  _Formorians_ \- the black hats within the same stories; although sometimes, like Jotunns in Norse myth, they marry into the Tuath Dé Danann sometimes, and sometimes they don't seem all that evil, just weird or inconvenient  
>  _Iceni_ and _Trinovantes_ \- celtic British tribes who got treated like shit by Rome so they burnt some Roman cities to the ground (Fun fact: London to this day has an entire archaeological layer of scorched earth attributed to this)  
>  _Boudica_ \- the Iceni queen, more badass than you, seeking to avenge herself and her daughters (trigger warning: if you google her, you will find out that one of her vengeance-triggers involves public torture and rape)  
>  _Ynys Môn_ \- the Welsh name of Angelsey where there was probably a druidic college which was wiped out by Rome (but not in this version)  
>  _Aurochs_ \- ancestor of modern domestic cattle, bigger and more aggressive and generally scary murder cows that didn't go fully extinct until the last ones died in Poland in the 1600s  
>  _Ogham_ \- system of writing possibly used by druidic types for sending messages to each other on wooden sticks, but not widely used for more than graffiti and messages; no real Ogham literature exists, for example

It was well-known to most Aesir raised after the war with the Frost Giants, that one of the key alliances which had allowed for Asgard’s victory against Laufey’s forces, had been with Alfheim. It was also known that a pocket dimension the size of a large island unto itself had been discovered over some large islands near Midgard’s arctic regions (though the islands were green and lively, rather than icy) and had been given to Alfheim, because it had been created as the byproduct of a failed attempt to break open a wide pathway between Midgard and Alfheim, for Laufey’s forces to invade their world next, after Midgard.

The space and matter intended to make a path capable of supporting the weight of Laufey’s army, had collapsed backwards on itself when the passage-building had been interrupted by attacking Asgardian forces, creating a landscape within the pocket-dimension originally meant to house only the Midgardian doorway of the path, purely by accident as the spells of Laufey’s mages collapsed. During that collapse, the matter within the pocket began to mimic, albeit distortedly, the ecology of Midgard where its entryways were still firmly anchored. The resulting unearthly territory was about the size of the Isle of Skye and it had, within its furthest reaches, a few crooked paths (only able to be traversed by gifted mages, but traversable nevertheless) leading to a few wild and unsettled places within three different kingdoms of Alfheim, widely geographically scattered.

As such, it had been named Tír na nÓg and given over to Alfheim for management, and oversight, until such a time as Odin could work out a way to fully close the rifts between the their world and Midgard. The clan of Danu, the which stretched across two Alfheim kingdoms in influence, was entrusted with guardianship of Tír na nÓg; although some only lived there a short while, perhaps long enough to leave their offspring to be raised on that otherworld isle, before returning to Alfheim for most of the rest of their lives.

Supposedly, the settlers of Tír na nÓg, who came to be called the Tuath Dé Danann, were not to interfere with the mortal populations nearby, just the same as visiting Aesir supposedly hadn’t interfered with any of them, upon their visits, and in their continued guarding of the few thin places in Midgard where the journey to Jotunnheim was shorter, under various seasonal and celestial conditions.

So, basically, there was meddling, but it could all easily be shrugged off as “impressionable mortals mimicking a few stylistic quirks from Asgardian/Alfheim cultural representatives that their ancestors met a very long time ago”––at least, that was all that anyone in the other seven realms could conclusively prove, so far.

By the time Loki had trained under mages in all three kingdom’s of Alfheim with connections to those pathways, he knew that this was going to change, probably as soon as within the next century down on Midgard. He was still trying to decide whether to warn Asgard or not. Odin had never doubted the purity of intent of the Tuath Dé Danann, which Loki had found hilarious from his first meeting with the rather eccentric Ogmios, of their number. He was king of a small but industrious kingdom, an inventor, a great persuader, and he had spent most of the evening trying to prove his own tongue––pierced with a stud of amber-and-ivory with a small gold loop on top, as though for hitching thin chains to––worth more than the silver of Odin’s adopted son.

That was one of the many reasons that Loki was not feeling motivated to forewarn his Asgardian friends and family about Alfheim’s overreaching influence in Midgard. Had he not learned of the rumors of his adoption from the first court he had visited in his scholarly years of traveling Alfheim, Loki sincerely wondered if any of his family would have ever bothered to mention it to him. He had wondered so sincerely, in fact, that he had not told them that he had confirmed its validity already, the first time his lover Angrboða had accidentally chilled him after when he angered her. She had been as shocked as himself when he matched her color, rather than becoming frost-bit, and she had helped him pull the pieces of his identity back together in her chambers, within her family home, where both of their magics kept even Heimdall’s and Odin’s eyes from witnessing Loki lose himself over to doubt almost entirely.

She had stayed with him when he first noticed signs of the Alfheim kingdoms connected directly to Midgard beginning to colonize, and had suggested that he let it lie. He had asked about the slave-trade and she had answered with familiar Fae rhetoric about how respected and well-cared-for all indentured servants must be kept, according to law, and out of love for her, and perhaps personal weakness, he had let it slide. She followed him back to Asgard, and bore their daughter shortly after.

Their relationship lasted as long as it took to raise Hel to adulthood, whereupon she was called into the service of Mistress Death. Subsequent renewed pressures upon Loki to enter into a political marriage became too much for Angrboða, after that, and she had eventually left him, when he refused to leave Asgard, or address his own adoption with his parents.

Loki knew that Thor was ignorant of their lack of blood ties. He knew that he could not ask Frigga her reasons for never telling him of it, without alerting Odin to the fact that his attempts to cover up the adoption of a frost giant into his family had failed miserably, and it turned out that half the nine realms already believed he was no son of Odin, based on gossip alone. Of course, some of them had the bizarre notion that Loki might be bastard son of Bor and a frost giant, making him secretly a brother of Odin instead, but Loki had ruled that out, after a few spells on his own blood had led him to his true parentage, which had been… depressing. Laufey was, after all, a rather disappointing and short-sighted king to be son of, in Loki’s opinion.

 _You were both born to be kings,_ Odin had told his sons.

Loki couldn’t help but wonder what the old man was playing at, given that if Odin had meant to groom him as puppet-king of Jotunnheim, he was doing very poorly at it so far. He needed more information, and Angrboða’s insistence on confronting his kin before he knew what Odin’s game was, rather than after, had been the fault line around which their relationship fell apart, even if it was the exterior siege of Asgardian politics which had weakened their bond sufficient for that crack to form.

When his betrothal to Sigyn fell through, several years later, his only solace was news from Midgard that Loki had been right all those years ago, which arrived just in time to prevent him from snapping and murdering half of court for being too boring that same day.

“Alfheim has broken the laws of the nine realms, and two direct treaties with Asgard, in order to turn the tides of war between factions of armed humans,” the messenger told the royal family. "The other seven realms are even now accusing Alfheim of colonialist intentions upon Midgard.

For once, Loki didn’t regret being stuck in the throne room with the rest of his kin in order to stand in the appropriate places for boring ceremonial reasons. He had never been so amused by an emergency dispatch from another realm, and it took an effort to hide it. “Against the Romans, I presume?” he asked.

The messenger hesitated, glancing at Odin, then back to Loki. “Yes.”

“Was it the Iceni or the Trinovantes?” the younger trickster inquired further.

“Er… well, the Iceni started it. They were aided by a young son of Ogmios, who allied with Morrigan and others to destroy a Roman governor attempting hostile takeover of sacred groves at Ynys Môn, and simultaneously organized the Iceni queen’s rebel forces into multiple armies which have successfully held all subsequent Roman forces from reclaiming the province of Britannia. There are also reports of wild herds of Aurochs entering and harassing, sometimes lethally, both traveling infantry and stationary encampments of Roman legions even as far afield as coastal Gaul,” the messenger sputtered.

“What do you know of this, Loki?” the All-Father demanded.

Loki only raised his eyebrows very high indeed. “Well, father, you sent Thor and I to guard the thin-places between Midgard and Jotunnheim every ninth solstice since we came of age. Last winter, the Iceni were so near to the thin-spot we were assigned to guard, that they noticed us and extended offers of hospitality. I took notice of their political situation, and that of their neighbors.”

“Are you not surprised that Alfheim interfered on their behalf?” Frigga asked, her gaze fixed on him very sharply.

“I am surprised they only do so now. If they were going to act, I would have expected them to do so back in that Julius Caesar fellow’s days,” Loki responded. It wasn’t, in fact, a lie. He really was surprised that it had taken them this long. Perhaps he had underestimated the levels of corruption and insular culture that existed in Tír na nÓg; he hated having to account for the tendency of Alfheim’s criminal elements to shroud themselves in almost as many bureaucratic checks on their own progress as their legal elements, in his calculations. _I would think one of Ogmios’s offspring might have better luck dragging them into action._ Idly, he started trying to guess which one of that mad inventor’s sons might have kicked the Roman empire in the teeth, but quickly gave up; there were simply too many and he knew too little about any of them.

Odin was looking at his younger son sidelong. “You suspected this would occur.”

“No,” Loki assured, grinning, “but I believe I already know what happened, now that it has.”

The messenger opened his mouth to elaborate when another messenger, this one female, appeared beside him, looking very alarmed. “All-Father, we have visitors-”

“From Tír na nÓg?” Odin sighed.

“Yes,” she squeaked.

“Bring them in.”

 

~~

 

Loki lacked his full helm, with face-guards and horns, that day. His role earlier had been to appear demilitarized in front of a few ambassadors from Dvergarheim, for their yearly visit. They were still so touchy over the incident a century ago, which had led him to be exiled from their realm with his lips sewn together, after all, that they enjoyed seeing him in diplomatic clothes, holding no weapons and wearing little armor plating, compared to the rest of his kin.

He felt relief, wearing a circlet with a v-like echo of his helmet’s design over his brow, rather than a full set of horns, when the retinue from Tír na nÓg walked in led by a Fae man with a set of antlers––still in velvet, fitting Midgard’s seasons––growing quite naturally out of his skull.

Only before horned representatives of other races did Loki ever feel that his helmet might appear in questionable taste. He might as well wear plate armor for muscles he didn’t have, too, in such cases, for all that it would impress such people to the same useless degree. Besides that, he had to feel an extra measure of embarrassment on Thor’s behalf, for his poor blond brother’s unawareness that half of Alfheim mocked him for wishing he had shiny feathers so badly that he put them on his helmet; it certainly was not Loki’s business to correct them, of course.

Upon sight of this particular pair of antlers, and the wild, slightly manic smirk on the neatly-bearded face directly below them, Loki recognized the leader of the rebels as Cernunnos. At least, that was the closest to a name he had found for this one; he hadn’t even been certain, before today, whether he was even related to Ogmios definitively or not. Behind him strode the even more recognizable Morrigan in her long black-feathered cloak, with hood pulled back to show her pale face, blood-red hair, and cold green eyes. She shot Loki a small smile, and he returned it. His daughter had introduced him to her a century ago, when the pair of them first became friends.

The presence of Nodens behind her, darker of complexion than the others, was a more genuine surprise to Loki, who had suspected him, before then, of more sanity. Two others joined them that Loki did not recognize: one was a healer, though he appeared to carry a warrior’s helm under one arm, and the other a woman dressed all in white. When Loki met her diamond-sharp blue-eyed stare, he could feel a whisper, caused by her mind tapping at the barriers he habitually kept around his own, and then wisely retreating.

The antlered god who led them all glanced around the room, reading everyone’s rank and position from one end to the other, finding Loki at the low end of this arrangement, still sitting in the position which was meant to tell Dvargerheim that he was Completely Harmless as loudly as possible. Upon seeing recognition, and then amused disbelief, cross Cernunnos’ face, Loki felt a frission of pleasant surprise in his chest despite himself.

“Brigid and Andraste would’ve made it too, but they’ve had a lot of fire-related business, lately, it’s a real mess,” Cerunnos opened with, cocking his head and peering up at Odin, his antlers casting shadows down onto his face. His eyes were a dark, rich brown, and his pupils were slightly wider than they were tall, with thick and heavy lashes. He wore no armor for this visit, only a cloak about his shoulders dressed him from the waist up, decorated further by the presence of a heavy, ridiculously ornate torc made of an advanced gold-alloy, worn around his neck. One end of the torc bore the head of a lioness; the other was a boar, and both were a gleaming wine-dark red. As he spoke, a flash of decorative glitter glinted from the left side of his tongue: an amber ring which pierced it, small so as not to hinder his eloquence, but at some point it had chipped the tip of his left eyetooth, making it look flatter than his more pointed right one.

Loki overheard Sif make mention to Thor, under her breath: _Only in Alfheim, did they enchant amber to be harder than bone, for the sake of glamor_. He frowned at the words instinctively, but when he thought of what other purpose the ring could serve, it caused him to re-evaluate what he knew of the wild, tempestuous forest fae in front of him now.

“You have this to say, after having broken your own realm’s laws, as well as those of the rest of other eight?” Odin responded, fierce with anger. “I know it was not Lenus behind you who led the Iceni, and I suspect it was you who persuaded Morrigan to protect Ynys Môn in time to prevent him from responding to the actions of the Iceni on the other end of the island, so it was you, then, who have rerouted the history of multiple mortal empires by your own hands. Why, Cernonn Ogmiosson?”

While the antlered fae flinched, Loki mentally marked the source from which he’d gotten the name Cernunnos off of his trusted list for name enunciations. He blamed Rome, because to be fair, it usually _was_ their fault.

“Fixing what my father broke, honestly. He really screwed over the druids by convincing them not to write anything down. As for why he felt it necessary to tell spiritual leaders in the islands closely connected to Tír na nÓg to discourage something as important as literacy, you’ll have to ask him, but I realized that this had a generations-wide effect which left a number of Tír na nÓg’s mortal neighbors and their neighbors’ neighbors to have this major disadvantage against Roman forces, in terms of technology and military innovation. I felt obligated to even the odds, just this once, but I swear on my life, that I will never do it again.” He then smiled, wide and reassuring, except for the amber-gold glint of the ring through his tongue, visible in the narrow gap under his chipped eyetooth.

“As I recall, bearers of your father’s rings have the unique capacity, amongst Alfheim’s residents, to oathbreak without consequence,” Odin pointed out.

Cernonn’s mouth fell shut quickly, lips a thin line for a moment before his smile returned, this time more sheepishly. “It has a lot of powers, yes, but it has this habit of glowing like a lantern when I actually use them.”

Odin’s gaze narrowed for a moment, and he then nodded, “But you are not oath-breaking yet.”

“That’s also true,” Cernonn admitted.

“So that’s why they said you were breathing fire,” Morrigan mused. “I’d wondered about that, honestly.” She then sighed. “Also, as you rightly guessed All-Father, I was persuaded-”

“Along with Nodey-” Cernonn added.

“Along with Nodens,” she corrected, “and Nemetona, to make every Roman present at Ynys Môn feel at best, unwelcome, and at worst, dead. Lenus did give Cernonn a fair bit of military theory tutoring, but otherwise he was busy keeping the mortals under our watch alive, and healing those who fell, where possible. We were persuaded that our personal influence had already made too much of a negative impact, and the only way to make amends for that was to come to their calls, when they most needed us, even if only just this once.”

“You were all persuaded,” Odin repeated, his gaze fixing again very sternly on the antlered god, who stood up a bit straighter, hyoid bone bobbing with a silent swallow as his companions all chorused agreement.

Loki glanced away, covering his lips with his fingertips, unaware of Nematona watching him with apparent interest and looking very wary, until he tilted his head back and she saw that his fingers were running over the scars on his lips. When he looked up, he looked her way, but she was again watching Odin.

The All-Father paused the apparent passage of time in the room for all but his family members. It took them a few seconds to notice, except Loki, who noticed it immediately because it coincided with the burning sensation of Odin’s stare leveled at him. “What do you think of this, Loki?”

“I think that you’re right about that ring, of course,” the younger prince responded, choosing his words with so much care that it was an effort not to let the sound of trepidation leak into his voice, but silver-tongue was his nickname without any piercings or other inspirational decorations, and he had earned it well enough. He kept his eyes on the god with the antlers. “I remember Ogmios talking my ears off at length. He is a showman with an ego the size of a planet, and takes immense pride in his powers of rhetoric and deception, so he assumed we would get along very well.”

Thor chuckled. “I recall that. He was mistaken.”

“Very,” Loki agreed. “How he keeps track of his veritable armies of indentured servants who run more than half of his kingdom, I know not.” He was pleased to see that phrase caused Odin to scowl deeply on an instinctive basis too. It showed that the God of Wisdom title might still be fitting, at least on good days. “I’ve met others of his sons and one daughter, who also wore amber rings similar to the one Ogmios himself wears.” He didn’t add that Ogmios wore it connected to a stud, unlike his offspring, suggesting they were all links broken off of a chain once anchored there, and possibly still anchored there in magic terms. “Not all of them wear them in the tongue, some only the lips, but it seems critical that they be near the mouth in order to convey powers of persuasion of a purely magic-based nature, irresistible even to gods outside of Alfheim. Even those who can see the rings glowing and know it indicates deception cannot help believing in what they hear.”

“Do you believe the others will keep their word, and not ally with him like this again?” Frigga prompted.

Loki appreciated her for it. This gave him room to fabricate a little more. “Yes. I am not certain Cernonn used magic on them this time––at least not all of them, but perhaps Nodens, and maybe Lenus––but I have no doubt they did not mean for this alliance to last beyond this rebellion.” All lies. In an honest wager, his gold would be on Cernnon not using magic at all, for the persuasion of any non-mortals. The mortals? Probably their whole armies were led around by that ring’s powers.

Odin summoned the relevant pages from the hands of both messengers into his own hands and begun to peruse them, taking in the details of the conflict. After a few moments, Loki grew impatient and teleported closer, leaning over one arm of the throne to also read more about the mortals affected by the rebel alliance before them. Skimming ahead rather than fully reading all of it as Odin was scrupulously doing, Loki was the first to reach the section detailing why the Iceni had started burning down Roman towns in the first place.

“I have to say, father, I support the vengeful mortals in this situation,” Loki murmured, “and I would consider siding with the mortal Queen Boudica, too. In fact, may I take a quick jaunt to Rome just for-”

“It is not our place to judge humanity. They are still just scattered groups of developing civilizations,” Odin reminded him.

Thor, by now, was leaning over the other arm of the throne. He read ahead while Odin continued shooting Loki a discouraging look despite his younger son’s apparent mock-petulant expression. “I agree with Loki. Given that the Tuath Dé Danann were the neighbors of these mortals, in close quarters to such mortal grief as this, I would judge them more harshly for not acting. I would judge them heartless, in that case.”

Admittedly, Loki had hoped the messages would contain some atrocity by the Romans sufficient to rouse his brother to the defense of the mortals on Cernonn’s side, but having now read it, he felt slightly nauseous for having hoped for any such thing at all; however, it seemed to work on his father as well, for Odin released a long sigh.

“Neither of my sons, then, would punish these rebellious Aos Sí then, in my place?”

“Well,” Loki said. “I didn’t say that.”

“Brother!” Thor protested.

“The ring,” Odin reminded his elder son.

Loki nodded. “The ring. It has to go. He’s proven he can command whole armies with it, quite literally, potentially while also controlling at least one of the most powerful gods of Tír na nÓg.” He gestured between Lenus and Nodens. “That’s a bit much power to trust somebody not to abuse later on, especially someone whose oath can be broken more easily than mine can be stretched, brother dear.”

“I doubt he could possibly find such an exertion as easy as you find oath-stretching to be,” Frigga corrected. She took one of the pages from Odin’s hands without looking and read it quickly. She frowned deeply at it, then seemed more relieved, “Oh good, they did kill Suetonius.” Her eyebrows raised. “And creatively.”

This was just one more reason why Loki has already forgiven Frigga, in his heart of hearts.

Odin made an exasperated sound. “I accept your verdict, if you will please return to your places.”

Before he moved away, Loki pointedly looked at Nemetona and noticed that her ice-blue eyes were fixed on his own, despite his having moved from one end to another. As he suspected, then, she had a rare psychic gift, rendering this pause-in-time detectable and breachable to her. Odin must have known too, so Loki didn’t hesitate to nod courteously towards her, before returning to his previous seat.

When time started back up again, Cernonn sneezed and squinted for a moment at the ground before meeting Odin’s gaze again, looking like he suspected something magic had just happened, but couldn’t prove it. The others didn’t appear to notice and kept their attention on Odin, except for Nemetona, who stared at Loki instead. He stared right back at her without any readable expression for several seconds, until she finally blinked and looked away.

“I am willing, on this occasion, based on the suffering of your mortal neighbors which you alleviated, and your solemn oaths to never repeat this offense, to spare you all from punishment save for your leader, and from him I would take only the ring from his tongue, that it may stir up no more mortal armies,” Odin announced. “Will you surrender this willingly, Cernonn?”

Stepping forward with all appearance of deep trepidation, Cernonn said, “For the sake of my companions, and out of respect for your own show of mercy with such a sentence, yes, but I cannot remove it myself, as I’m sure you know.”

Odin nodded, and Frigga strode from her place at the base of the throne to Cernonn’s side, smiling reassuringly to him. “I will heal you, once it is done.”

He needed the reassurance, as Odin strode down from the throne to stand before him and extend the tip of Gungnir in the direction of Cernonn’s tongue as the fae man opened his mouth and a blinding flash of light filled the room.

As soon as it faded, Loki saw Frigga holding her hands to either side of Cernonn’s face as blood escaped his lips and he slowly sunk to his knees, even as the healing glow of Frigga’s magic suffused him. He coughed, once, and slowly rose again, once the queen of Asgard let him go and stepped back from him. Wiping blood from his lips, he swallowed tightly, then made a face, clearly feeling the absence of both the freshly-healed wound, and the ring that had preceded it. “Well, that wasn’t fun.”

“Generally, punishment is like that,” Frigga responded dryly.

Cernonn smiled at her, a bit crookedly. “You have my now-weightier oath not to lead mortal armies into war ever again. Will that suffice?”

Odin inclined his head, then glanced at each of the antlered god’s companions, who also swore oaths never to break the laws of inter-realm interference with mortal humanity ever again, before he dismissed them all back to Tír na nÓg.

 

~~

 

Loki wasn’t surprised when all of the visiting fae didn’t leave at the same time.

Nemetona found him leaving the dining hall far too early after the feast, eager as he was to get away from being on display at last, after his too-long and too-political day. To say he was thus a bit exasperated when this escape attempt led him to facing down a foreign dignitary right before the doorway separating the public section of the palace from the more private quarters actually used by the royal family, would be an understatement.

“Ah, the psychic one. Enjoying your visit?”

She smiled, thin and mildly disapproving.

Loki realized, belatedly, that she must be a teacher. He only ever knew teachers to be capable of pairing smiling and disapproval both simultaneously and with any dignity. “Does being psychic make you better at educating pupils, or just more easily angered, given that you can actually hear when they’re deliberately not-listening?”

“You’ve got quite an array of talents all your own. I can barely see you. I would wager, in fact, that all sorts of people can barely see you, sometimes.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that your voice is like frost?”

“Frequently. I enjoy decorating my groves with it in the appropriate season.”

Loki finished tracing a sigil on the inside of one palm with the thumb of the other behind his back, causing his eyes to glow green for a moment. “You’re not incorrect about my abilities. You may speak freely.” He held up his hand, aware that she could see traces of his sigil fast-fading, with her gifts.

“Why did you help my friend without my even having to threaten you, little trickster?” she asked. “How did you know his plans?”

“I did not know them. I guessed.”

She frowned at him.

“You don’t have to look deeply to tell I’m not lying.” He tapped his right temple with his his sigil-hand illustratively. “You don’t even need to get past my walls.”

“Don’t I, with you, silver-tongue? There’s a lot of reasons Ogmios tried to invite you over while he was having a party, and try to frame himself as still the better liar.”

“I never needed magic for my deceptions. Instead I use higher-quality deceptions,” Loki responded. “I found him far too reminiscent of both Thor, and every reason that Dwarves have ever annoyed me, combined in an inexplicably Fae form. Oh, are all of you rebelling against him?”

“How did you know about the ring?”

“Oh, come now, you sensed the dip in my defenses earlier, didn’t you? I wasn’t certain it had been you watching, at first, until Odin paused the meeting to hear his family’s counsel on the matter, and finish reading the details of your rebellious actions, all while you watched because he didn’t notice your gift.” He raised both eyebrows. “Speaking of surprisingly hidden things,” he further teased.

Her gaze dipped to his mouth, and the still-shiny scars there. They would remain obvious and iridescent on the trickster’s skin for another few centuries, yet, with how severe his wounds had been. When she met his eyes again, his smile widened a great deal without going anywhere near his eyes.

“As you can see, I know censorship when I see it." He tapped at the first of the scars, where the needle had first been pulled through. "My brother’s handiwork.”

Her eyes opened wider, genuine shock not quite restrained behind her calm mask of stoicism.

“Well, it was Odin’s command, of course. Better than letting a lesser dwarvish noble handle my punishment directly, which apparently isn’t suitable for Aesir royalty––even myself.” Seeing her eyes finally narrow again, at the end of his sentence, he decided to distract her by giving a heavy sigh, then tersely reassuring her, “Look, I’ve got no personal irons in the fire where Midgard is concerned, and if you’re looking to annoy Ogmios, I’m game for it the next time I’m in Alfheim, but to be perfectly honest with you, most of what I do these days is expressly to annoy my own family, except for my mother. Now, may I be left in peace for the night, or do you have some further suspicious questions for me?”

She shook her head, finally smiling a little more warmly. “My apologies, then. a good night to you, Lie-Smith.”

“And to you, Frosty Lady of the Sacred Groves,” he returned, grinning when she gave a derisive snort at her altered Midgardian title, before he stepped around and past her, to at last complete the journey to his sleeping quarters.

 

~~

 

Loki didn’t think too much of it, later. Time caused the thin places between Midgard and Jotunnheim to migrate slowly southeast, over the next century, and for some reason Odin had insisted on Sif and the Warriors Three joining Thor and Loki on their trips to Midgard to guard them during the solstices when they were most vulnerable. At first, Loki found this decision to be mindless at best, and personal punishment against himself at worst.

It took him half that century to realize that the purpose of the Warriors Three on those trips was the cultural effect of how, upon every visit, inevitably at least one of them getting lost enough to wind up in the nearest village telling stories about Thor and Odin and the wars with the Frost giants to any children, or even adults if they offered a flagon of beer or mead as a conversation-starter.

Shortly after this realization, and after returning home from another solstice vigil, Loki went straight to one of his favorite vineyards in Alfheim and attempted to drown himself in one of their casks. Luckily, the owner––called Askja––had survived being one of Angrboða’s maternal Fae relatives, and an old friend of Loki’s, both, for a long time by then. She withdrew him from the cask and threw him into a half-frozen pond.

Once he was sober, some while later, and wrapped in blankets in front of her hearth, she asked him what exactly he was trying to forget.

“I feel exploited,” he said flatly.

“Is this about Ogmios’ pissing contest with your father?”

Loki blinked a few times quickly. Nothing changed. So he asked, “What?”

“Well, Odin freed one of his sacrificial offspring, didn’t he? Oggy got really pissed off about that.”

“Oggy?”

“You won’t be surprised who coined that nickname for him.”

“Let me guess––he wears antlers?”

“Yep, that’s Cern.”

Loki raised a brow. “Is that what most call him, here?”

“Now that he’s not bound to his father, yes. He was well-liked when he was young, but he became more volatile, for awhile there, as he came into conflict with his father on grounds of––popularity?”

“At least I shall never have that problem.”

Askja cackled only a little at his resigned tone. “The problem with Ogmios is that he married his equal, and lost her to his own actions. He never wed again, and so, inevitably, as his sons come of age, they begin to compete with him.”

“I am _genuinely_ glad that this has never been a problem for me, but it sounds similar to what I’ve been able to dig up concerning Odin’s falling out with Bor late in the latter’s life,” Loki responded. “So Cern was sent to Tír na nÓg to open up Ogmios’ mating pool? Seriously?”

“By the standards of Alfheim royalty, you know this is still considered only the mildest of eccentric dysfunction.”

Loki opened his mouth to argue, then closed it, grimaced, and finally nodded in defeat. “That is all too true.” He then brought them back to the original topic, “You alluded to a pissing contest between him and Odin. Are you telling me that the dissemination of Asgardian culture by drunken members of the Warriors Three over the past ninety years has been a part of this?”

“Well, Ogmios might think it is. He’s been trying to get control over the Druids back ever since Cern somehow got them to start writing everything down. They've built a dozen libraries and the Alexandrian school has begun to visit them.”

Loki appeared startled, at that. “That quickly?”

“You… didn’t hear the full story of what he did during the rebellion?”

“I heard something about a new script competing with Latin?”

“Yeah, well, it isn’t much of a competition. It’s way easier on the Goidellic languages especially, with their ludicrous-”

“It’s all All-speak to me,” Loki cut in. “Ogmios is angry about this why?”

“Well, who do you think invented Ogham?”

Realization broke over him and Loki began helplessly cackling. Once it trailed off he said, “So Ogmios is trying as hard as he can to leave new marks of his own on Midgard, but likely got himself banned from Tír na nÓg?”

“Of course. He’s banned by both Odin and Alfheim’s high Queen.”

“So some of his offspring are probably hunting their own brother across Tír na nÓg and Midgard, the druids are ignoring Ogmios’ teachings new and old, all while Odin just drops a drunken member of the Warriors Three in different villages once every nine years, and inspires a whole new religion, just to spite him for it?”

“At least he’s using you for what you’re good at?”

Loki shot her a glare.

“What? You usually love pissing people off.”

“I prefer to know when it’s happening, and how well I’m succeeding. I still feel exploited, here. I haven’t been having any fun with it, yet!”

Askja shot him a wary look. “Yet?”

Loki chuckled softly. “Oh, you didn’t think I was going to let this lie, were you?”

“You really think Odin will just send you to Midgard? Will Heimdall?”

The trickster giggled. “Oh ye of little faith.”

 

~~

 

Getting into Tír na nÓg was not difficult. The paths were narrow, but Loki had learned them well, on his initial visits to the three Alfheim kingdoms that connected to the island-sized landmass trapped in-between them. For convenience, Loki wore an elderly female form with long blonde hair, wearing a long traveling cloak. She looked steely, and stately, but not high-ranking or flashy enough to stand out much in a crowd.

The kingdom that Askja’s vineyard rested on the outskirts of was on the opposite side of the planet of Alfheim as Ogmios’, which was very lucky. The entryway into Tír na nÓg from that Kingdom was a very unattractive cave mouth not quite two thirds of the way up the sheerest cliff-face on Alfheim’s western hemisphere, which was less lucky. By virtue of years of honing his skills in shape-shifting, Loki was able to fly through the entryway at just the right angle to avoid knocking his wings on the cave-mouth, on his way into the crooked, surreal trickeries of distance that he was so familiar with on the strange paths between the realms of Yggdrasil that he had so far discovered.

(He would look for the ones going to Jotunnheim the moment he wanted to. He wasn’t avoiding the place. Not at all. And furthermore, how dare you.)

Emerging from the path, Loki found himself in a familiar subterranean space, and changed back into the form of the forgettable matriarch. As she stepped out of the mouth of the cave, she breathed in the spiced air of the nearest settlement, its perfumes  all-too alluring, but she resisted, following at first a clear path into the woods, and then a trail that might have actually just been created by water runoff during heavy rains, and eventually just a vague suggestive notion of the landscape underfoot.

She walked until she could hear music, and occasionally seemed to catch a whole tree quietly twirling a few branches along with it.  And she kept walking.

She walked until the music faded and the glow of daylight (Tír na nÓg did not have a sun per se, but the suggestion of night and day persisted, including somewhat inexplicably directional dawns and dusks that matched those of Midgard) seemed to dim as though it were suddenly hours closer to dusk than the day had earlier promised, but in reality the canopy of trees overhead had just grown thicker.

While human industry had carved tidy farmlands out of former old-growth forests and tamed the Midgardian landscape that rested alongside this plane, Tír na nÓg had no such checks on forest growth. The cities of Alfheim consisted of half-forest, somewhat to the perpetual consternation of visiting dwarves and Vanir, who both preferred efficiency and straight lines, rather than road systems that bent over backwards to accommodate small but spiritually vital copses of eldritch-looking trees. Tír na nÓg had perhaps one city, on the opposite end in the region with a doorway into Ogmios’ kingdom. The rest of the island was forests so deep and dark that Heimdall’s gaze and Odin’s ravens could not traverse them––and occasional towns.

Loki stood very still when she heard the sound of a nearby herd of Aurochs, and she began to alter her path to move away from their numbers. She recalled a few stories that Roman invasion forces at Ynys Môn had been attacked by a herd of wild aurochs at some point, under Cernonn’s control at the time, no doubt.

Given that similar prehistoric Midgardian cattle to these, when they had been brought to Asgard millennia ago, had proven that even a herd as small as three was capable chasing Bilgesnipes from their territory, Loki would not have been surprised at their effectiveness against Roman legions. Shield walls could only do so much to stop a ton or more of flesh, bone, and horns charging full tilt towards the provocatively shiny invaders. Not for the first time, Loki wished she’d had front-row seats to that show.

She did not, however, want to encounter Aurochs this afternoon, if possible.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice suddenly spoke from a few paces behind her, “Looking for anything in particular, out here?”

Loki turned to see a Puck. Upon closer examination, this one was an elder, with a bow and arrow on his back and short straight horns near his brow that reminded the god of lies of a ceremonial helmet he had worn as a child. The purple toga he wore had clearly been made up of fabric stolen off of high-ranking Roman officials on the continent at some point or another, probably for sheer mischief rather than outright warfare. Probably, but not certainly.

“I know my way to Midgard from here, but I thank you,” she told the Puck.

He flicked one of his sandy-blond hare-like ears, and snorted amusement. The ear had a strange piercing: a silver loop from which hung a thumbnail-sized garnet disc with one of Morrigan's subtler sigils carved into it. “You certainly do. Not many come this way, direct though it may be. Even powerful gods like the comfort of seeing the trails they’re on.”

“I can see it just fine, Mister… ?” Loki found himself unable to discern anything useful about the talisman's purpose by looking at it directly, so she met his eye again with an intrigued smirk.

“Just Clint,” he said, smirking back a little, and pointed towards the nearby Aurochs. “Those are my cattle. Along with any red deer you might see, so do please leave them unharmed.”

“Well I certainly mean you no trouble, then,” she assured, shooting an uneasy look in the direction of the nearby herd.

He laughed softly. “Now, why would they harm a nice lady like you? You’re neither mortal nor Roman nor hostile, so far; although what you _are_ is surprisingly difficult to discern. You are not a Fae, I did notice.”

That was already more, by rights, than the Puck should have noticed, but Loki inclined her head in a small nod of agreement amiably enough, beginning to walk again along her path. He called, “You’re not Hel in disguise again, I mean, are you? If she tricks me one more time, Morrigan will never stop laughing at me.”

Laughing with genuine mirth for the first time in far too long, Loki turned sparkling green eyes towards the Puck. “I had thought you looked a little familiar, but no, Clint Goodfellow, I promise you that I am not Hel in disguise. She would garrote me if ever I claimed otherwise.”

Clint relaxed slightly, realizing she genuinely was a friend of Morrigan, or at least one of Hel's, which was close enough, these days. Tension left his shoulders and the hand on his belt dropped away from the neck of a pouch of poison for dipping his arrow-heads in, as he watched the traveller walk between two gnarled old oaks and into a still denser part of the forest, where it seemed, truly, like premature night under the dense canopy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From Cern's perspective.
> 
> Useful Terms:  
> The river _Albis_ \- these days we call it the Elbe  
>  _Ás_ \- another term for Aesir

“You didn’t warn me how tall they all were,” Cern groused, as soon as they were free of Asgard’s throne room. “I could’ve shifted a bit, added some height, looked more normal compared to the rest of these long-boned Ás-types, but nooo.”

Morrigan laughed at him softly. Of course she did.

“And what were they thinking trying to hide one of their princes practically in the corner? Did you get any read on him, ‘Ema?”

“Aside from the fact that he seemed interested in you?” Lenus suggested, leaning back slightly to avoid a sweep of antlers when Cern’s head whipped around towards him. It had been easier before their most recent growth spurt, and he was hoping the velvet would come off sooner rather than later, at this rate. At his friend’s urgent eyebrow waggle, the war-god extrapolated further: “He wasn’t surprised by us, this rebellion, none of it. He looked practically gleeful, when we came in.”

“You mean after he looked at me like I’d grown another head for a second?” Nodens intoned.

“I think he just expected saner of you than joining in with the likes of us for all this rabble-rousing,” Nematona––or ‘Ema as Cern insisted on calling her––suggested, offering his upper arm a comforting pat. “His mind is well-guarded, as I told you it would be. He is a mage a few centuries older than you, and has traveled far more widely.”

Cern scowled at her. “Not for my lack of trying. Not everyone has a bi-frost.”

“Actually, he rarely uses the bi-frost, because it requires permission from Odin,” Morrigan said softly, the enchantments on her cloak allowing her words to reach her companions’ ears, and no further. She was a mage almost as old as Loki, and had trained for awhile under Asgard’s greatest teacher, Hlín, who also knew Loki well and had taught him the same arts of concealment too. “He travels other paths between the realms. I have heard of him going to all of them at some time or other, save for Jotunnheim.”

“Curious that he would avoid any of them,” Lenus mused. “He seems like the sort to venture to all forbidden places, just on the grounds of their being forbidden, and what land would be more taboo to a son of Odin, these days?”

“Nifelheim,” Morrigan answered, “the source of all of Jotunnheim’s ice-problems. His daughter’s land neighbors theirs, so of course he’s visited.”

“Still, then,” Nodens mused. “Why not Jotunnheim?”

“Maybe he’s smart and doesn’t want to start another war with them?” Cern suggested, gently scratching at the velvet on one antler thoughtfully.

“He’s Aesir,” Lenus pointed out flatly. “They always want to go back to the good old frost-giant battling days, don’t they?”

“Well, Loki is nothing if not atypical, if rumors are to be believed; although I believe Morrigan has slightly more first-hand knowledge, as she’s tried to hint to you all,” ‘Ema pointed out, then turned to her feathered friend and asked, “What rumors are wrong that we wouldn’t know, darling?”

“Hard to say. I know his daughter genuinely cares for him, or she would have shared more such knowledge with me. Well, she did confirm that he’s never given birth, to a horse or otherwise, but you probably all guessed that,” Morrigan said. “I have only met him a few times, and he is only a little less unnervingly observant and calculating than his daughter, who I suspect learned a great deal from him.”

“I do respect Hel’s opinions. She’s the most sensible Asgardian I’ve ever met,” ‘Ema added.

“You just say that because she’s a quarter fae,” Nodens pointed out.

The blonde goddess frowned at him, but was interrupted by Cern laughing before she could protest, and then his asking, “Did Odin do something itchy with time passing, back there, ‘Ema?”

“He did.”

“So what did you hear?”

“Much. Morrigan, can you expand the spells in your cloak a bit further, please?”

They walk from the palace, back through the city towards the bi-frost they had called up to in order to confront their accusations as soon as Asgard caught word of them, and it took nearly two thirds of it for ‘Ema to explain all the interactions she had observed amongst the royal family as they had discussed the fate of their poor little Aos Sí asses: death or a mild slap on the hand. That wasn’t the part that Cern found worrying, though.

“He knew what that ring was really for,” he said, dangerously quiet. “I want to know how.”

So ‘Ema went to find out.

 

~~

 

Then ‘Ema told him, and Cern got this weird, uncomfortably empathy-type feeling in the vicinity of his sternum that he didn’t like one bit.

“His brother? Seriously? I thought Thor was the _noble_ one?” Nodens had asked, after the explanation.

They sat in one of the oldest sacred groves at Ynys Môn, and one of the first that Cern had claimed for himself, his own script following the growth lines of the bark of every tree around them. Notably, none of it was in the alphabet he gave to the druids; some sigils really shouldn’t be handed over to mortals, and especially not for them to use for writing heroic verse. That would literally spell disaster.

It did mean that no words he and his friends exchanged would escape the grove, as well, which was convenient.

“Ogmios is a king. Nobility is a stupid barometer for a person’s worth, as always,” Cern responded flatly. He was still turning ‘Ema’s words over in his head. He had barely been able to see the scars on the Aesir prince’s mouth, at the distance he’d stood from Loki in the throne room, and had marveled at how fresh they must have been to be so visible on skin as tough as an Aesir’s, but he now wished he’d looked closer while he had the chance. “Also, I hate to break it to you, Nodey, but a lot of people would consider sewing my mouth shut to be a noble act too, and Loki’s reputation is even worse than mine, when it comes to trustworthiness. I don’t think Thor’s reputation suffered from the event at all.”

“You seem tense, Cern,” Morrigan pointed out.

“He was expecting this whole damn rebellion, and he didn’t tell any of his kin. While you were still in Asgard, I contacted a few friends back home using the waters, here. One of them has a friend who knows Angrboða very well. She happened to be visiting, when I called him. As soon as she found out I led the rebellion, she started to laugh at me.” His right eyebrow inched closer to his antlers. “She then told me she was glad she chose not to bet against Loki’s wager that Tír na nÓg would rebel against Rome before the end of this century. Apparently this wager is almost as old as their daughter.”

The others looked equally uneasy.

“Well, that’s distinctly unnerving. Do the Aesir even know the worth of that brain of his?” Lenus mused. “Even if he seems about as sane as a bag of cats.”

“He’s not a threat to any of us specifically, though, is the overall gist I’m getting,” Nodens concluded, then nervously glanced at Morrigan. “Is he?”

“He is a threat, but not to us, so far,” she agreed.

“If anything, helping us in future would probably be an annoyance both to Ogmios, and to Odin,” ‘Ema pointed out. “He _did_ say he’s game for that, next time he’s in Alfheim.”

“Which I’m still banished from,” Cern groaned, rubbing his face with both hands before settling both hands around the base of his antlers and grabbing them tight for a moment, rubbing a bit where they itched, before letting go, and frowning at the highly visible traces of fuzz on his palms afterward. “Dammit. Exiled _and_ molting.”

“Also, Ogmios will probably begin trying to kill you in earnest now, so you should consider lying low on the continent for awhile,” Morrigan suggested. “Besides, there’s even bigger herds of Aurochs out there, and Rome is getting their feet back under them. You told me it wasn’t that ring that gave you the knack for compelling hoofed beasts.”

“Yeah, that part just comes with this territory. I’m glad you saw straight through my promise to only stop leading _humans_ into battle.” he rubbed his palms together and a small shower of tiny hairs followed. “Yup, this is gonna look real dignified this week.”

“It’s easy to look dignified while laughing at Romans,” ‘Ema said. “And you have an inhuman army to amass in Gaul to annoy them with.”

“Well… that _does_ sound pretty fun.”

“I really did enjoy your work on Suetonius’ forces, with the Aurochs. I forget, sometimes, what strong swimmers they are in water slightly deeper than men are tall,” Morrigan remarked. “I thought that was very artful of you to use on Roman semi-aquatic forces. Almost poetic.”

“Fine,” Cern sighed, aiming to sound put-upon, but winding up sounding terribly cheerful. “I’ll recharge my magic for a few days in Tír na nÓg, work on some projects, maybe make a new shield or something, and go start laughing at some Romans while seeing if we can destabilize them in Gaul.”

 

~~

 

The first trip to Gaul was followed by dozens more, over coming years, after his initial startling successes at the edges of their empire. Reviving a couple of druidic colleges that weren’t skin-crawlingly-creepy also seemed to help. Finding other schools of such learning that had turned into strange death-cults in response to the imminent threat of being wiped out by Rome was unfortunate, but somehow not surprising. He left those ones alone, mostly because they legitimately gave him the creeps.

Sometimes he never wanted to know some of the things humans could put their considerable ingenuity into. Especially when entrail-based decorations got involved.

Then, after about half a century of slowly losing all the ground he had previously gained within those first five years with his methodically-applied wildlife-based forms of outright mischief, he nearly got slaughtered by the Romans. It stopped being funny, sometime after they got supernatural help: spear-heads made by men shouldn’t have been able to break through the heart of Cern’s round shield.

His mother’s heritage made him dependent on the land he was bound to, to recharge his magic, down to its roots, and even without Ogmios’ ring to tie him to his father’s power, the laws of Alfheim’s higher royalty had been the ones to bind him to Tír na nÓg, not Oggy’s. His shield had been a buffer against that, imbued with a piece of the land he could carry with him. It had to be travel-sized, and thus also needed some frequent recharging, but less often than Cern alone did.

But now his shield was shattered, the remains of it wrapped tightly in a bundle tied to his belt. It bounced and rattled against his knee quietly with the swing of each step of the horse carrying him. He had stolen it from the remaining cavalry left after his rather violent escape from being dismembered crazed mortals.

“I was just trying to get out of Northern Gaul. I was gonna let the stinking fuckhead Romans have it back anyways, they’ve been winning, I just didn’ want to let ‘em off easy, you know?” he complained, to the horse, leaning heavily on her neck. He was bleeding sluggishly still, even as they finally reached the sea shore, the next morning. At least, he hoped this was the first morning since then, because no others came to mind when he rummaged around for them in his memory.

Hazy memories of his shield being pierced shortly before his right lung was flashed through the injured god’s mind out of nowhere, making him flinch. Surety slipped away from him like sand through a sieve the longer he thought about it, so he stopped, and tried to sit up.

“Hey, buddy,” he called out, his voice rasping, at the ocean itself. “If you’re listening, Nodey, I could really use a ride home. You c’n have the horse? Izzat a fair trade? Well––you should take it anyway.” He then fell off the horse and unconsciousness caught him before he even felt the first wave wash over his legs.

 

~~

 

“You’re an idiot,” Brigid told him, when he woke up. “What were you thinking, riding with that spear-head still stuck in you? Are you Odin now? Hanging off a horse instead of a tree for _days_?”

He groaned. “You healers, always trying to sweeten things up. It wasn’t more than two days, tops, I swear.”

She smacked him across the chest. “You were poisoned! That couldn’t have been a normal legion.”

Cern blinked up at her. “That would explain how they broke advanced Alfheim tech I incorporated into my shield. Yeah, I know, I’d guessed they had some magic help. Poison doesn’t surprise me either, but you saved me. Again.” He smiled tentatively and took hold of her hand and squeezed gently. “Thanks, Pep. You are the best of us, darling, never forget that.”

Brigid sighed, her freckled features drawn in frustration, but she did squeeze back, reassuring as ever.

Nodens appeared over her shoulder, looking down at his old friend. “Cern, what did you make the center of your shield out of? The part that glowed?”

“Energy I borrowed. I tricked a piece of Tír na nÓg into acting as a sort of supplement for me over long-distances, while I was away. It had run out, though. I had stretched it too far, and it needed to come back as much as I did. It also recharges, when here. Where is it? Well, the pieces.”

Brigid’s brow furrowed with even deeper concern, but her anger was swiftly banked, which was never a good sign.

Nodens just looked disbelieving. “Take a look down, my friend.” 

Cern looked down at his chest. It had a few spots on it that seemed to be glowing, some deeper under the skin than others. “Oh. Shit. Are they-”

“They are stuck to your bones,” Brigid said. “I removed some of them, returned them to the land here, but some shards are stuck there and bonded to your skeleton as you tried to return home. You… you may be stuck here no matter what the laws may be. Your heart is caged under those shards of the land you made, Cern. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m alive, Pepper, hey, it’s fine.”

Her clinical mask cracked at his nickname for her. Most people had just compared her to fire, but he had identified her as something rarer and more precious which also provided both warmth and bite––peppercorns. “Don’t give me that! You’ve been trying to leave here ever since you arrived-”

“I’m a genius, though, I mean… look what I’ve gotten away with so far? I’ll figure something out.” He snorted. “Or maybe I’ll just settle in, live my life in deer form, and while away the years compelling cattle to trample wrongdoers.” He ran a hand over the glowing pieces of his own ribcage and sternum. “At least it looks sort of like a fawn dappling. I bet it makes me look younger, even, and my dad will be even more angry once he hears that not only have I lived, but I’ve got a unique battle scar accessory to attract people with. This is great, really.”

“You can’t be so flippant about this, Cern,” she insisted.

“Mostly, I’m just glad I’m not dead,” Cern responded. “Also, I’m extremely hungry, which is really distracting me from the capacity to behave maturely.”

Nodens squeezed Brigid’s shoulder gently. “It’s okay. We’ll work it out.”

“Seriously. I don’t care if you serve me something with antlers so much like mine that it makes me genuinely suspect that one of my relatives fucked its mother. That is how much I need food right now; I was on the run for two days before they caught up with me, and I tried really hard not to fight them directly, but they really insisted, so no court could convict me over this, and you can stop looking like I’ve got a death sentence. It’s only making me wish I’d just roasted and cooked a thigh of Centurion before I got on the horse to head home.”

“Grab him something from the kitchens, please,” Brigid called to one of her nearest aids. “He’s only going to get more absurd from here.”

The aid bustled out with admirable haste indeed.

“This is just because my tender fresh-healed body requires a lot more sustenance before I will regain sufficient mental capacity to contemplate tragedy. It’s very simple. I’m sure I’ll throw a proper fit about it, once I have the energy, but-”

“It’s alright, Cern,” Nodens told him, patting his head and smiling when this caused his friend to emit an indignant noise in response. “We’ll bring you food, and won’t even try to make it look like a relative.”

“Depending on the relative that might not be in your favor.”

“Name one cut of your father’s carcass that wouldn’t be either toxic (his liver has seen better days and you know it, and don’t even say brains) or indicate your desire for his approval, like his heart, or just be sort of weird, like his thighs with how many people they have slapped against over the years-” Nodens began to rattle off, “-and it’s hardly like you to want you mouth anywhere near his haunches, either-”

“Stop it, Nodey, please, eurgh, I really do need to be able to actually stomach food when it gets here,” Cern cut him off.

“You started it.” He then chuckled as his friend swatted playfully at him.

 

~~

 

There were only so many places it was safe for Cern to get a drink in peace, where his close friends couldn’t fret over him.

The only places he felt comfortable anonymity in tended to be full of dangerous people. Most of them should not be in the realms at all. Also, this place––for while it was supernatural and not designed to cater to humans, it still resided in Midgard––was close enough to Tír na nÓg that it barely put a twinge in his chest to spend the night there if he happened to get particularly drunk, but tonight he didn’t have enough genuine coinage on-hand to bribe the tavern-keeper quite that sweetly.

It was also inconvenient that the tavern-keeper insisted on this shirt-wearing business, but at least the tunic-illusion required to fool him didn’t spend too much energy. Well, not too much more energy than keeping his highly-recognizable natural headgear hidden from view, and altering his hairline accordingly.

Ever since the damned reactor he’d made with a little shard of Tír na nÓg weirdness in it had fused with his bones, it felt like a lot of his life went into hibernation. Laying low in this place felt like part of that hibernation, but at least some of the people-watching was good entertainment.

Tonight, for instance, an elderly woman was drinking Clint Goodfellow under the table, smiling like the very devil all the while. Cern, from his spot in the corner, had watched with amusement when the pair of them came in earlier.

The lady had apparently won a wager with the man after catching him stalking her more than once through the woods throughout the afternoon.

Presently, Clint’s attempt to get some of his pride back via drinking contest was beginning to erode his dignity, as he struggled to remain fully upright in his seat at the table’s bench, while the lady beside him, still matching him drink for drink, appeared only a little flushed.

It occurred to Cern that the lady had familiar green eyes, both lively and somehow poisonous-looking. As the final flagon of mead in their contest led Clint to droop in drunken defeat and a slight stupor, the horned god smirked to himself and strode over to sit on the other side of the lady who had beaten him, brandishing two flagons of ale and a grin.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked, as Clint fell into a half-doze, resting mostly on the table. “If only to make up for my friend’s poor manners.”

The green-eyed lady smiled up at him, her wizened face shrewd as she looked him over from head to toe. “I do not mind at all, Cern.”

So he sat down, and set down the ale and asked, “I take it conversations around you don’t get overheard or unduly witnessed vey often, these days, now do they, Loki?”

It said a lot about the place that no one even glanced their way when the harmless-seeming matriarch on the bench beside him transformed into a prince of Asgard, but then again, maybe it said more about the power Loki wielded without breaking a sweat.

It absolutely did not make Cern jealous.

It absolutely did.

“They don’t,” said the tall and infuriatingly pretty bastard, smiling. It took a lot of effort not to stare at the trickster’s mouth, but Cern achieved the feat nevertheless. Then Loki gestured towards the drunken Puck. “Is he a close friend?”

“Not very. Well, he’s a good friend, but he’s definitely a lot closer to Morrigan than to me. They’ve known each other longer than I’ve known either of them, actually.”

“Interesting. He is even older than he looks.”

“Make sure I’m around to see his face when you tell him that, sober.”

Loki smiled a little. “I first met him two days ago, actually. I’ve been traveling locally, awhile. I must have seemed suspicious, because he began to follow me once I returned here.” He picked up his flagon of ale and took a sip. “I heard you ran into trouble in Gaul.”

Cern dropped the illusion of blood-red tunic he wore, and the concealment of his antlers, mostly because he felt comfortable within the halo of Loki’s concealment spells, and because he was tired of supporting it. “Oh, just a few shards of my shield accidentally got welded to my bones. It happens.”

“Does it?”

“It did to me.” He didn’t suck in a breath sharply, when Loki leaned in closer to examine the dappled spots of glowing skin over the bones protecting Cern’s heart, but only because he caught himself in time to suppress the impulse. “Makes traveling a bit harder, these days. My range is limited. Rome gets to keep Gaul, I guess. It was going their way anyway. I just really enjoy making them fight murder-cows; it pleases me.

“I would imagine so. It sounds like a wonderful sight,” Loki said sincerely, mirth making his eyes brighter still.

 _Wow, lit up like that, they look like damned jewels._ Part of him determined, immediately, that this was a god who needed to smile like this a bit more often. “I would prefer being able to get more mileage out of elk as well, but Rome still doesn’t get far enough north for them.” He cocked his head slightly, and inquired, “Any particular reason you’re wandering about down here?”

“Yes,” the trickster responded. “Have you noticed the east is changing tone quite a bit these days? Sacrificial gallows cropping up whenever forces east of the Albis river come in contact with Roman forces directly?”

“Yeah, well, and whose fault do you think that is?” Cern shot back.

“Yes, and I gather by your tone that you can guess why.”

“Beyond the pissing contest?”

“I think it really is just the pissing contest. Well, I suppose it might be _possible_ that Odin is under some delusion that Aesir influence will help counter-act the negative effects of your father’s legacy, in Midgard, but even for him that’s pretty irrationally optimistic. I wouldn’t wager my own money on it, but perhaps some of Thor's.”

“And what of my legacy?”

“Oh, I think he’s irritated that you specified armies of humans, and said nothing about armies of bovines, wild pigs, and deer, but he’s not inclined to do much about it. Funny enough, since Rome just steals and relabels most of their gods from other lands, not many of the pantheons they’ve borrowed from and tried to include in their state religion are inclined to help them as the Tuatha Dé Danann did their neighbors,” Loki explained. 

“And nobody cares if they get bullied about for a change either, particularly with bulls?” the antlered god suggested.

“Oh yes. In fact, every nature goddess you can think of who has ever been associated with cattle, across multiple pantheons, seems to have been privately seething over their inability to stick it to Rome over their treatment of bulls and other of their favorite creatures in their Colosseum games, and they refuse to call your actions anything but poetic justice, in fact. Demeter may have petitioned her pantheon to adopt you. Possibly herself personally, if Hathor doesn’t offer first. Odin cannot denounce your actions, in that sort of political climate.”

Cern chuckled, genuinely blown away by the suggestion, but clinging white-knuckled to his carefree façade so as to not to melt over strange parental-approval-related feelings in front of a sexy Asgardian god he barely knew. “And Asgard? Who are they willing to interfere with down here, themselves, so far?”

“Apparently, mortals who live around, and work in, breweries. That is usually where lost members of the Warriors Three most commonly wind up, when they wander off, during solstice.” Loki was watching his mouth more closely, suddenly, and he realized the god had only just noticed his new piercing.

Cern’s tongue was now decorated with a semicircle in the middle of it, like a tiny minature torc, with both round ends visible from the top of his tongue (lining up vertically rather than horizontally) with the loop connecting them only visible from underneath: an advanced gold-titanium alloy this time, as seamless as his previous piercing, but somehow much more _Cern_. “Like the new one?” he asked. He stuck his tongue out briefly to let the trickster get a better look, letting his tongue flick up to display the loop on the underside before reeling it back behind his teeth once more.

“It suits you the better.”

It was easier to resist looking at Loki’s mouth this time, if only because those eyes seemed to be magnetic. _Does he even know how damned pretty he is? He probably does, the bastard, just look how he sits everywhere: always lounging with his knees so far apart that-_ It was harder to stop himself from looking at the god of lies’ thighs than it had been to stop himself looking at that mouth. Both in the throne room, and here in this tavern now that his disguise was lifted, Loki showed that he apparently enjoyed letting those long legs of his sprawl, was all, and it was very distracting. Cern told himself firmly, _Stop thinking about his legs._

Luckily, Loki didn’t notice his distraction and continued, “I’m curious why you replaced it.”

“It has occasional perks.”

“Oh?”

“Surely, Silver-tongue, you could imagine some playful uses.”

The look that the trickster shot him then threatened to rob Cern of all good sense,  though it lasted only a moment before he hid that flicker of dark heat again behind a more self-effacing smile. “Ah, and here I was considering mysticism as a motivator. How terribly dull of me.”

“It’s not enchanted, no. It’s mostly… self-reclamation for me.” He took a sip from his ale, mostly for an excuse not to have to hold Loki’s gaze after that admission. “Anyway––magically affected metal tastes terrible, which is part of why the links Oggy gives to us kids are carved from amber. It’s less reactive to magics and doesn’t leave a foul taste in the mouth.”

“So Oggy’s own piercing is not enchanted either?”

Cern smiled at the instant adoption of Ogmios’s least-favorite nickname by the Asgardian. “Actually the ivory the stud he wears is specifically enchanted to absorb the flavor effects of the gold inlaid in it.”

“If only it also aided with his breath reeking of a staler version of whatever he’s been drinking,” Loki mused.

Outright giggling at that, Cern playfully elbowed the trickster. “Now that you’ve built rapport, do you plan to tell me what you think of Odin’s side of the pissing contest?”

Meeting his eye, the trickster pointedly finished his ale before answering. “I think he should be made to regret it, and look bad doing it.”

“As much as I approve, I do have to really wonder why that is,” Cern replied, his tone very thoughtful, “because this isn’t just your scars talking.”

Appropriately, Loki’s expression grew a little more guarded again. “It is not.”

“So what is it that’s sparking your petty wrath, here? And why Midgard?”

“Odin portrays himself as a god of wisdom, and I am tired of being exploited for the sake of stupid plans,” the trickster responded. “And Midgard because he keeps sending me here and forcing me to spend mind-numbing hours in the company of the Warriors Three during winter solstice every nine years.” He raised an eyebrow pointedly. “Hours I will never get back.”

“I’m going to rate that at about half-truth, at most. Well––the Midgard part is entirely true, but not the first part,” Cern chided him.

“What gives you that impression?”

“Because this is the same look I saw on you before I was sentenced. Nothing has changed, and this spite of yours isn’t any fresher this time than it was then. Quite the opposite––you’re getting more comfortable with it. So I don’t think this is all about your poor company at Solstice-visits every nine years since we met. It’s no more than half of the impetus behind your action, and I’m also an expert in a multiple-pronged approach to matters.” He pointed at his antlers. “Pun intended.”

Loki’s calm mask allowed him a sly smile at first, in response, but it was a bit crooked, and a flicker of anger flared, just for a moment––a momentary irritation at being seen through; it was quickly replaced by a fascination and intensity of focus that bordered on clinical detachment. “I learned secrets of his, some time ago, which led me to grow to resent him. More than that, I will not say.”

“Was that about the time when you started placing bets on when Tír na nÓg would break the laws of the realms in order to repel Rome?” Cern prompted.

At that, Loki smiled enough to show his teeth again, just a little, but is eyes were suddenly cold. So, for that matter, was the air around them. “It was when I began pointing out fault-lines to my lover of the time, and she was the only one I offered such a wager to. Given that we parted on respectful terms, and I would not have her brought into Midgardian matters, particularly mine––I would advise you strongly not involve her further.”

Twitching slightly at the mellifluous delivery of that very subtle threat––out of fear, and other reasons distinctly not-fear, alike––the antlered god reassessed just how dangerous to him Loki might actually be. On a variety of levels. “I’ve no intention to, and I wasn’t attempting to reach her directly, at the time. She was in the home of a friend.”

The trickster relaxed slightly. “Good.”

Cern was a bit stunned at the show of protectiveness for an ex-lover, who Loki had most likely not seen in person for years. He silently marked all the rumors about the healthy nature of their past relationship, and continued (only slightly strained) friendship after parting ways, as more-than-likely-true. It was… intriguing.  “I still want to know how you knew that, though, given I’d barely started the earliest planning phases––putting feelers out––”

“Trade in mortal ‘servants’, in Alfheim, was bound to cause conflict with the Roman empire. If anything, humanity is lucky that you started this rebellion earlier than their bureaucratic and unwieldy leaders could finish amassing a few militias to protect the regions nearest Tír na nÓg’s entrances into Midgard. If not for you, perhaps within three or four years at most, they would have acted out of selfish greed in order to maintain their sources of imports,” Loki said coldly. “I had no idea you would do that. I was pleased to be wrong about that part.”

For a moment, Cern reeled, mostly as the trickster’s words coalesced into his own world-view, slotting neatly into gaps that he had been overlooking for years now. He ran a hand over his face. “Damn. You’re right.”

The trickster’s expression softened slightly. “The only way to stop that trade, would be to put all mortals out of their grasp, of course.”

“Which isn’t possible while Tír na nÓg… exists,” Cern concluded for him. “Yeah, I know, that was always the more impossible revolution, out of my available options. I still don’t know how to make that one work.” He glanced up, seeing open surprise on the older god’s face. “What? You ever met anyone who has worn chains, who ever supported other people being shackled?”

“Yes, but they all have had a tendency to go mad and destroy themselves in the process,” Loki countered, “so I am glad you chose the more sustainable option.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Your chains.”

Loki froze, looking momentarily confused. “Pardon?”

“You’re clearly really tired of obeying your family. I don’t know how Odin betrayed you, exactly, or why you dance around the subject so hard you’re more willing to discuss my enslavement than consider just how many hours of your life you spend time doing things you don’t actually want to, for the sake of someone you no longer respect,” Cern told him firmly. “I don’t care, but what does concern me, is that you’re not fighting very hard, yet, despite being in pain.” When this resulted in a hand closing around his throat tightly, he smiled despite the breath wheezing out of his trachea in a stuttered, half-smothered laugh.

The violence of the gesture was enough that a few tables around them, after scarcely a glance their way, began to inch away from them, leaving plenty of room for the tavern’s security golem to approach if need be.

“My life isn’t mine alone. My daughter is a queen of her own realm, and much of the moderation shown in my behavior is also to assure that her first century of reign is not overshadowed by the rest of the realms denouncing her father and possibly warring against me, darling deer. You would do well not to underestimate my loyalty to the women in my life who mean far more to me than that one-eyed bastard does, these days. You accused me of being more comfortable with my rage? No––I am more comfortable with the fact that I have never belonged to Asgard, nor to him.”

Cern’s smile dropped, uncertain exactly what to make of that, beyond its fierce sincerity. “Alright, I concede, I misjudged. You are on no one’s leash, clearly. My apologies.”

Loki let him go. “Accepted. Please do not make the same mistake again.”

“No plans to.” He rubbed his now-bruised throat as it healed.

The large, protective golem behind the bar returned to at-ease position, once the tension in the room dissipated and everyone went back to peaceably ignoring one another. The previous level of noisy susurrations and occasional louder bits of conversation at the more raucous end of the room, reestablished itself.

“If you really want to make Odin look bad,” Cern suggested, “You might need to develop the cultures he’s influencing a bit more, with your own influences. Your knack for cloaking your actions from even Heimdall’s sight might as well go to some use.”

“What sort of development?”

“Well, I learned a lot in Gaul. Druidism won’t last there. It might stick around these islands for another century or so, but the continent is in chaos right now. There’s not going to be time for any new religions outside the empires that be, to really get foothold. The peoples east of the Albis don’t have quite large enough populations just yet, nor enough surplus resources, and while they have strong warrior traditions, a lot of them come from Celtic or prehistoric roots. You're going to want to give them more to contrast with the west, if you're going to make any specific point about Odin's acculturation attempts making humanity worse.”

“They cannot compete with Gallic neighbors at present, you mean.”

“Well, they can a little bit, so far. I mean, they’re doing a fair bit of raiding the edges of the conflicts between Rome and Celtic Gaul, and they aren’t bad at it, but they’re not exactly as talented as the Picts, or any of the other island-based raiding types. Maybe they could use a wily sort of god who teaches them to exploit the weaknesses in the imperial thinking and strategies used by their neighbors.”

Loki began to smirk very wickedly, at that. “Once they do have more cohesive religious cults to Aesir in the east––would you care to contrast the gallows with some of Oggy’s old traditions?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I believe they’re called Ghost fences?”

“Well… a number of druidic cults in continental Gaul weren’t what I considered salvagable, you could say.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, and they’re getting really desperate in their displays of power, and their ritual sacrifices, because, as I said, Rome has been winning there lately. They revived some genuinely prehistoric forms of large-scale human sacrifice, and they’ve really been getting out of hand with it.” He sighed dramatically. “Honestly, they’re really giving the druids I actually respect bad press. Once Rome fully seizes control of Gaul, of course, they’ll all be wiped out by the legions, given their pathological fear and hatred of druids ever since Ynys Môn.”

“Stability will take them, what, two decades tops, now?” Loki mused.

“Closer to one. Can you build a significant cult in ten years?”

“No, but I can still make examples of those cultists of yours enough to cause multigenerational cultural shockwaves. If they can make a vast enough death-monument before they’re wiped out, it will only spur the cults further east to make their own death-monuments compete on a similar scale, after the first few generations.”

Cern felt his whole body tingle, just glimpsing the whirl of intuition and foresight behind those words as they fell, in the mischievous glow of the trickster’s eyes. It was far, far too enticing. Everything about the tall, proud god was that way, though, it seemed to Cern. Everything about the question that next fell out of his mouth should have seemed like a bad idea, and yet still he asked: “Will you still be wandering around these parts in time for Beltane this year, or do you prefer to only visit Midgard during solstice and to charm information out of handsome young fae at your leisure?” He then marveled at the results.

As though a core point of tension between Loki’s shoulder blades suddenly released, he seemed suddenly languorous and yet predatory in his movements as he leaned in closer and began to smirk.  “Is that an invitation, little deer?” his voice was almost as much warning as temptation, deep and resonant and terribly compelling.

Breathing was trickier, at this closer proximity, but Cern managed. “Depends how you celebrate. I’m the sort of guy who is really tired of running into relatives at public orgies, so I tend to celebrate privately.”

“I’m equally disinclined to potentially run into Angrboða, or any of her kin who live in Tír na nÓg,” Loki responded. “Alternately, you could wait a far shorter time before having some privacy with me, if I knew which quarters in Morrigan’s court you’re staying in, presently.”

“Okay, I said nothing about that.”

“What do you think I won off of Clint in our earlier wager?” the trickster countered. He pointed in the direction of the still-dozing Puck illustratively, but then smiled when the younger god showed no interest in glancing away from his face.

Cern licked his lips. “That should probably not contribute to your sex appeal, for me, and yet…” He leaned in, and settled a hand at the nape of Loki’s neck and pulled him down closer, in order to capture those maddening lips in a kiss. He couldn’t help flicking his tongue across the scar nearest the edge of Loki’s thin lips first. The trickster took advantage of Cern’s parted lips, slipping his silver tongue between them, and undertaking a prolonged, unhurried study in gold. Well, not just gold, but the way Loki toyed with his piercing in particular was so gentle, at first, winding and exploring, before Loki then applied suction and all the rest of his skills, to the rest of the antlered god’s mouth. The ensuing kiss laid waste to Cern’s remaining inhibitions, and a good deal of his self-awareness, beyond his free hand seizing one of the trickster’s lapels, mostly just for something to hang on to.

When the kiss stopped, they were both panting slightly, but Loki still seemed to remember who and where he was. Cern needed a few seconds before he realized the trickster was asking for that crucial room-location information. Cern gave it, and then the world fell away.

Cern’s breath left him in a rush, because nobody had shown him teleportation could be quite like this: smooth as the beating of mighty wings through the darkness between worlds, and then his own rooms coalesced into view around them just as smoothly, and without any blood or even words from Loki’s lips for the spell.

The antlered god decided to conceal his countrified culture-shock––causing him to mentally curse all sexy, well-educated mages––by exploiting a few weak points in the spells protecting Loki’s armor and clothes from mystic tampering. Once the protective spells were down, he used magic to get as far as stripping the god of lies to the waist before he was distractingly pinned to the nearest wall, whereupon he had the life kissed out of him again. He was prepared to declare that a victory, given how eagerly Loki whipped off his cloak and opened Cern’s trousers enough to slide one clever hand down the front of them. Feeling long, clever fingers curl around his cock brought him rapidly to full hardness.

Unable to restrain the resulting harsh moan that escaped him when those fingers moved, he decided to at least make it less easy for the trickster too, and so made sure the syllables that escaped him formed Loki’s name.

Loki all but growled in response, capturing his mouth again.

 _Oh, by the nine, that mouth,_ was the last coherent thought Cern had before Loki’s tongue again took up almost all of his attention. His hands explored the trickster’s stomach and sides greedily until Loki seized his wrists in his free hand and pinned them above his head. Cern’s breath quickened, his whole body prickling with the awareness of how much stronger Loki was than he looked. He didn’t even need to struggle to know he wouldn’t be able to escape the trickster’s hands, and it had been a long time since Cern felt a frission through his whole body that screamed, _Yesss_ , as control was taken away from him.

Not since he broke up with Brigid, but that was the last thing he wanted to think about while Loki’s hand was still wrapped around his cock, giving slow and exploratory strokes––lazy in comparison to the fury of their kissing, making Cern whimper and buck his hips, then growl in protest when this didn’t result in any increased friction.

Loki pulled back from the kiss to grin down at him, “I think I would like to fuck your mouth.”

Cern smirked wickedly, despite his panting and flushed appearance. “You’ll need the wall behind you.”

Releasing his grip on the younger god’s wrists and vanishing their remaining clothes, Loki obligingly swapped places with him, leaning back against the wall and grinning at how swiftly Cern fell to his knees, only to lose his breath a moment later.

Loki found himself with an antler in one hand, and the other tangled in Cern’s hair, holding on for dear life while the younger god eagerly tried to suck it out through his cock. “Ohhh, little deer, yes, like that,” he gasped out, voice shaking a little at the feel of smooth metal rolling against the underside of his cock all the way to the base as Cern took him in all the way down to the root, unexpectedly. Before he could recover, the younger god swallowed around him and moaned in apparent delight when this earned him a full-body shudder from Loki Silver-tongue.

With an effort, the trickster pulled back from the wet heat, only to push back in before he was halfway out. Again, Cern emitted a moan, as though the sensation of the head of Loki’s cock rubbing the back of his throat was positively delightful, and this time shot a playful, challenging look up to meet Loki’s gaze.

“Oh, you sweet wicked thing,” Loki gasped, and began fucking his mouth in earnest: slow and deep, breathless sounds escaping him at the maddening patterns traced by metal and tongue along his cock as he did so, Cern holding his gaze and sucking so that his cheeks hollowed as he made another delicious series of noises, compelling Loki to pause his thrusts just a moment––allowing the younger god a chance to swallow around him again, more than once this time, until Loki at last came with a broken cry, then shuddered and gasped as Cern kept working him, swallowing and sucking until he brought the trickster back to full hardness, however shuddering and sensitive.

Then he pulled back with a slightly rude pop, “How many times do you think you can make me come if I let you fuck me?”

Loki tugged him up by his horns until they were close enough to share breath again. “I think I shall make you come at least twice with just my hands and mouth. As for how many more I may wring from you with my cock?” He pushed the smaller god towards the bed bodily, smirking still wider when Cern let him, without hesitation, eyes never leaving his. “How many until you beg me to stop?”

Cern felt his breath catch. “I look forward to finding out.” _This is the best bad decision._ He didn’t change his mind in the least when he was dragged towards the bed and pushed down to sprawl out upon it. When Loki then proceeded to push two magically-lubricated fingers into him with a murmured spell to ease their way, followed by those whispering lips wrapping around the head of his cock, he decided that he would never, ever change his mind about this.

As much as he enjoyed teasing his own lovers with it, he had to admit it would be a crime to pierce Loki’s tongue, or rob it of any iota of its nimble dexterity by weighing it down. At first he thought he might have said it aloud, and panicked, but then realized that no, the noises coming from his mouth were just the syllables of Loki’s name, repeated like a mantra, interrupted by occasional pleas. A third finger pushed into him, and without magic this time he felt the burning stretch of it.

Then Loki’s mouth pulled away and Cern almost wept at the loss. “Please don’t stop!” He would never admit to whining, but it was hard to argue his tone as being anything else.

“Oh, I will continue, rest assured, but I promised to make you come for me twice before I take you, did I not?” He smiled indulgently when the only reply he got was semi-incoherent cursing. “Now, now, darling, you won’t be disappointed.” His fingers then found the younger god’s prostate and proceeded to undertake a sudden, twisting, and forcefully thrusting approach to stroking it.

Cern cried out and tried to reach down to stroke himself, but Loki seized his wrists again, and whispered binding against them, before pushing them down on either side of the antlered god’s head. Cern struggled once the trickster let go, but found that yes, he really couldn’t move. Well, he could if he cut the thin magic pinioning him down, but for some reason, the thought of doing so was very remote indeed.

“So eager for me,” Loki purred. “You tried to provoke me to genuine anger earlier. That was when I noticed you seemed quite. frustrated.” He punctuated the last two words with particularly hard thrusts, and felt Cern writhe and moan with each. “I think you can come from my fingers in you like this, held at my mercy and yet free to escape if only you remembered how to want any such thing.”

Cern’s breathing hitched a little. “Your tongue really–– _Oh yesss there please-”_

“My tongue what?”

“M’st dangerous part of you, please don’t stop.”

“Oh, few things in all the worlds could compel me to stop now,” Loki promised, his voice full of heat as his fingers sped up their pace. “I will hear you beg for me, and I will give you everything that you beg me for, until your voice is gone and you forget your own name, and then I will still make you come again.” He trailed off with a small moan of his own at the sight, as his words drew the younger god over the edge, his release painting thin white streaks across his stomach.

“Very good,” Loki purred, and promptly moved back down his body to swallow his cock, and all the while his fingers never ceased their movements.

Cern emitted a small half-scream, the head of his cock almost painfully sensitive, and Loki suckled hard at it before tracing complex patterns and whorls across it, while sliding a fourth finger into the younger god’s ass.

“Loki! Hurts, fuck, don’t stop, aaAAAHH FUCK!” Then Loki took him to the root and swallowed, at the same time his fingers twisted, and Cern came again, silently this time, save for breathy pants, his whole body trembling.

Using the remaining slick on his fingers on his own cock, Loki pulled both the antlered god’s knees up, persuading them to hook over his shoulders. “I do hope you’re ready for me, darling deer.”

“Get your damned perfect mouth back on mine and start fucking me, Loki, or I will strangle you to death with my thighs,” Cern responded, in a purring rasp that he hoped made the god of lies resolve to make certain to come back for Beltane. The way Loki visibly shivered with it did give him hope.

“Perhaps you can strangle me later” he said, with his lips still just slightly out of reach.

Then Cern’s attention was diverted to the pressure and stretch as the trickster’s cock pushed into him. He had been prepared well in advance for it, but Loki was still very gifted, and the slow push of his length squeezed the very breath out of him once Loki finally bottomed out. “D-don’t you dare make me wait.”

The trickster beamed at him, beatific and sincerely thrilled. Then proceeded to fuck him so hard that Cern saw stars and forgot how to breathe, which was not helped at all when Loki did finally kiss him.

 _Oxygen? Nope, don’t see the appeal, anymore. Too busy playing with a silver tongue and-_ “FUCK!” His third orgasm caught them both off-guard, startled out of him so suddenly that his whole body tensed and spasmed tightly enough to take the god of lies over the edge with him.

“You really _have_ been frustrated,” Loki mused, his voice not as even as before.

Cern might have protested the amusement he could hear in the older god’s voice, except for the fact that Loki had not stopped fucking him. “Y-you bastard.”

“Like harkens to like, darling deer. I will even let you tie _me_ up, on Beltane.” Loki grinned, gratified at the hungry look those words earned him, and then grabbed his lover by the hips and leaned back, changing his angle and slowing his pace maddeningly until Cern began to curse and threaten him again. Wrapping a hand around the younger god’s erection successfully robbed him of words again.

“Now… I believe I promised I would make you beg.”

Cern moaned long and low, and gave himself up for lost.

 

~~

 

Loki was gone, in the morning, which was expected, but he had also left a note, which struck Cern as odd, until it turned out that the note explained that Loki had gotten an urgent message from his daughter, which had compelled his leaving. It also explained that this was a terrible shame, because the trickster had been planning to arrange for him to wake up to the sensation of Loki riding his cock.

After spending some quality alone time with that fantasy, Cern somehow managed to make it into the dining hall in time for breakfast with the rest of Morrigan’s guests, in her court. And also Morrigan, at the head of the table, of course.

She beckoned him over to sit beside her, which should have been a warning sign, but Cern’s good mood persisted, and he knew he was even moving around in a slightly looser, distinctly more well-shagged sort of way than he had in what felt like ages.

So he plopped down next to her at her enormous table and beamed at her. “Yes, Morrigan dear?”

“You had a visitor, I noticed.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Someone under a number of ludicrously elaborate, and annoyingly effective cloaking spells. You brought this _totally unknown and powerful stranger_ into my home. Furthermore, they teleported in.”

He had the decency to look a bit sheepish. “Sorry. I should’ve maybe warned you, but I got really, really gorgeously distracted.”

She touched his arm. So did some of the feathers on her sleeves. “How worried and angry should I actually be?”

“It was just Loki, and it was just sex. A lot. He’ll be returning, for Beltane.”

Her eyebrows raised very high indeed. “Charmed him, did you?”

“Well, his cock certainly likes me.” He stretched a bit with a contented sigh. “Damn, what are Aesir made of, anyway? I haven’t been this sore in years.”

“Their muscles are slightly denser than those of most Fae. Were you mortal, he might have destroyed your pelvis.”

“Well––” he shot her a very lewd look, “-actually-”

“Please don’t finish that sentence.”

He laughed loud and long, and Morrigan smiled to see a more carefree look on him again, for the first time since his last return from Gaul; however, she also knew him too well.

“It wasn’t just sex, though, was it?”

He shot her an odd look.

“He’s been creeping around on Midgard. How long?”

“Not too long.”

“Why?”

“Same as usual: he’s out to piss off his dad.”

She withdrew her hand, but the shadows around the pair of them deepened, compared to those in the rest of the room, which Cern now knew from experience meant she had extended her Heimdall-proof cloaking spells to include him without requiring physical contact. “How this time?” she asked.

“Well… things are going to get pretty interesting in the east, let’s say.”

“It’s already interesting. Not pleasantly so. The raiders are getting wealthy and reckless and ever more prone to abusive forms of social stratification, as they are prone to do, and if they hang any more corpses in ‘Ema’s groves, they may mysteriously disappear within the next decade under circumstances even I won’t be able to trace back to her,” Morrigan reminded him coldly.

Cern again looked a bit sheepish.

“You didn’t persuade him to diminish the cult actions Odin has been stirring up even a little bit, did you?” she sighed.

“Well… um. It seemed like a good idea at the time?”


End file.
